


aimless flapping of penguin rituals

by Wino



Series: The Darcy fix no one asked for [16]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Also cheese, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, F/F, Fluff, Happy Ending, Jane Foster is a Good Bro, Much AU, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, ballerina au, but fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 00:26:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13376238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wino/pseuds/Wino
Summary: The average man would not believe the amount of stupid and yet life-changing decisions one could make when their ass was freezing in Bumfuck-nowhere, Tromso.Or, the AU where Darcy was a ballerina and recognized a familiar figure on a tv show.





	aimless flapping of penguin rituals

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hollyspacey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hollyspacey/gifts).



> Okay. Happy Birthday, Holly!  
> This is... like... super late, but I did spend a lot of time trying to make it as pretty as possible. I probably failed.   
> But here it is, in all of its splendent glory... kinda.
> 
> This work wouldn't have been possible without  
> \- dresupi's super nice help with creating this AU.   
> \- Aunbrey's help, because she read the thing top to bottom helping me out so much I just... Love you.  
> \- Acaseofthemondays, because she's perfect and amazing and helped me so much  
> \- Queenspuppet, she's my rock and my strength with this, I love her so much.
> 
>  
> 
> Straight up disclaimer, This work is not betaed. Errors are mine, but I tried hard.
> 
> Second disclaimer. I am not a ballerina. I know nothing about ballet apart from some documents and reports I read specifically for this fiction. I've seen a lot of classical ballet, but that's about it.  
> For this reason, I implore you to look indulgently upon me while judging my accuracy, I tried my best.
> 
>  **I hope you liked it, please leave a comment on your way out.**  
>  Enjoy!

   


   


The average man would not believe the amount of stupid and yet life-changing decisions one could make when their ass was freezing in Bumfuck-nowhere, Tromso.

Well, Darcy wouldn’t believe it either but she’d been repeatedly told not to leave the observatory, to not leave the rooms, not check her internet, not do not do-

And then, they had the gall to tell her that the room they were working in (and they still couldn’t leave during the day) was not a gym and that her warm-up exercises were _distracting_ and _oooooh she was so done with it._

Darcy Lewis was leaving Tromso’s Observatory of the Sciences and finding a damn Wi-Fi spot and _to hell with it_. The fact that it was well over ten in the evening didn’t really compute in her mind, Norway had sun all day round during the Summer, it was barely 4 pm, judging by the bright light.

Despite being an observatory, and thus needing actual darkness to properly function, the building was smack in the middle of a little congregation of houses and properties, including a very big pub that was probably the only source of entertainment for miles. Which totally meant internet. _Bingo._

The young woman took her coat, checked that the helpers (the guards) were properly distracted and just… exited the building. No resistance. _Huh. They weren’t trying very hard to keep her in_. 

She stroked her arms as strongly as she could in the cold and rushed into the street, towards civilization.

_What the what._

The road just in front of the building was packed. Like, a hundred percent packed, _no space to move in what the hell is happening somebody help._ It was like the entirety of Tromso had poured in the centre, which was too tiny to contain everyone. People of all size and age, so many Darcy didn’t even imagine there could be this many in this tiny place, were staring, in silence, at the giant screen in the back of the pub.

“What’s going on?” she asked, perplexed. Okay, her Bokmål was hardly good enough to understand or actually attempt a conversation, but she figured that if she tried English they’d understand better.

A curly haired, blonde woman wordlessly pointed at the screen and Darcy’s blood froze.

Aliens.

_There were fucking aliens in New York._

Suddenly the guards at the door and the extremely urgent and solicitous invitation to move to Prison Land, Tromso, right away made a lot more sense.

Something green zipped on screen, followed by a red-caped ass. _Was that Thor?!_

Anger spiked in her chest. How dare he leave Janey and then be plastered all over the news. She was very glad bosslady wasn’t watching this with her.

But then everything else became a confused and meaningless turmoil of voices and chaos. 

In the midst of pandemonium, as the people started cheering for the nameless heroes (well, Iron Man and Thor she knew, and there was a Captain America cowl in the fray so…), a different flash of red caught her eye.

She couldn’t see the woman’s face, for the images were grainy and terrible and the cameraman was trying to very dearly not piss their pants and keep reporting, but her breath caught in her throat anyway.

Because she knew those lines, those legs and that way of moving and running and jumping. She’d studied it for all of her life; since she’d been five and _‘you’re still too young, Darcy’,_ since she’d been eight and just starting out with her first classes and there was no mistaking. She didn’t know how this was possible, but in New York, fighting aliens, was _Irina Mikhailovna Lebedeva_ , one of the greatest prima ballerinas of the 70s, looking as young and strong as she’d seen her in the yellowed tapes she had watched over and over.

The longer she stared, the more she was starting to doubt herself, of course.

Irina Lebedeva had been the absolute legend of ballet since she first emerged as the Esmeralda in the homonym ballet. She’d been seventeen at the time, according to critics.   
  
That was 1972.

It was impossible, Darcy reasoned, for a woman of over seventy to keep herself so young for over fifty years. 

And yet.

She adjusted the thick glasses on her face and tried to focus more. 

For the rest of the reportage, she couldn’t catch another glimpse of the redheaded woman, no matter how hard she tried.    
  
She sighed in disappointment. _Go figure._

But then, at the end of the fight, as the ‘superheroes’ (Thor was very much in the doghouse, but he was totally a superhero) caught their breath and Tony Stark took the brunt of the reporters, there she was again, holding a man in purple with a noticeable limp. The doubts that had started gripping her vanished as soon as the woman started walking. It was simply unmistakable. 

“-We’re the Avengers, of course!” Her eyes zeroed on Tony’s Stark face, distracted and then went back to the back. The woman and her partner had vanished and Thor had come to the forefront, looming stoically on the reporters. “Midgard is under our protection,” he said solemnly. And apparently, that was that.

But as the press speculated on the identity of the mysterious heroes, those who hadn’t publicly shown their faces, Darcy’s mind had conceived what was probably going to be Bad Idea number Five Hundred.

* * *

  


Fan mail was not something the Black Widow had expected.

Her entire job depended on secrecy. Or at least, it did.

Recently, Fury had pushed for a more public stance for Hawkeye and the Black Widow. The Avengers needed a united front, at least for the public, so, for the time being, they’d been shipped off to Stark Tower and put off the roster for incoming missions. It was increasingly bothersome.

But anyways, no one had told her she’d have to deal with fans. The press, yes, on some level, but the fans were nothing more than civilians she had to, unfortunately, play nice with. For PR’s sake.

It wasn’t happening, of course.

She had discussed it thoroughly with Pepper. There would be no first-person contact with fans, ever, but they grudgingly agreed on reading and responding to some of the post people sent her way.  Clint found it absolutely hilarious.

The first few letters were innocuous enough.

_‘You’re awesome, you’re beautiful, I really admire you’_ were the norm for a while. Natasha kept her word, she answered to some, she addressed others via the terrible Twitter account Tony had gotten her.

Soon the compliments were followed by the brunt of the butthurt people who didn’t get an answer or just didn’t like her. That was fine, she didn’t particularly like the general public as a whole. She’d learnt soon enough that trust should be reserved to few, and affection to even less. It didn’t hurt, not really. She’d been called worse on her ‘good days’.

She systematically burned everything that opened with ‘Bitch’ or similar apostrophes. It was almost satisfying. 

Sometimes, Clint would just take the whole of her letters, leaving only some token message for her to leaf through. She was kind of grateful.

After a while, whenever Steve would gather fanmail for all the team and distribute it around, she’d just dump it all on Clint. 

On that Monday, though, Steve entered the Common room with a puzzled frown. They were all gathered around the table, sans Thor. Bruce’s head was bobbing sleepily over the tea and Clint was probably dead, for he’d fallen asleep with his eyes open.

“Something wrong, Captain?” asked Tony, looking up blearily from his coffee mug. 

“I’m not sure,” Steve answered, at last. He was holding an envelope that had probably seen better days, too. “I fear there’s been some kind of error, but I’m not sure.”

“If it’s addressed to Mr Awesome it’s probably me,” grumbled Clint. Sometimes Natasha wondered if her partner actually slept. Then he’d do something stupid and she’d reconsider.

“Haha, we all know that one’s Bruce, Clint.” Banner choked on his chai. “But anyway, it’s actually addressed to Irina Mikhailovna Lebedeva.”

Any snort or hint of hilarity she could have displayed was replaced by surprise. 

* * *

  


_That name._

She’d used it when she was still Red Room. How could she forget?

_Someone else_ hadn’t forgotten either.  

Clint had insisted she open it with them present, in case there was something inside they would need to act upon promptly. The fact that the letter itself was just too obvious was the only thing that had stopped them from destroying it point blank.

As it was, she was… rather curious. And somewhat worried, maybe. Those days were well behind her, but someone had recognized her as Irina, so something must have gone wrong.

Natasha inspected the envelope carefully. There was a Norwegian stamp, and it did come from Norway ( _and that it came from Europe wasn’t reassuring, but not a red flag either_ ). The address was not printed but handwritten ( _sloppy, unless you had someone else write for you_ ), and it had the stamps of four different post offices. What kind of demented journey had this thing been subjected to?

Without further ado, because stalling would bring as many results as waiting for rain in the desert, she tore the corner of the paper and took out the letter.

_‘Well, it didn’t explode in my face, that’s nice’,_ she thought bitterly. The next thought was  ‘ _oh man’._

It was a scrawl of messy lines, most of all scratched out. Underneath, a very censored monologue and what was probably the actual content.

  


_This letter classifies as Mistake Number 500 or so since I moved to Norway, I’m afraid._

~~_Sooo. I don’t even know what to write on this thing, frankly, just…_~~

_Okay. If by chance you’re not Irina, you don’t know her or even of her ( ~~you should, she’s awesome),~~ please destroy this letter. ~~I am probably pretty drunk already.~~_

_But if you were her, and yes it’s unlikely because she was 17 in 1972, right? So that would make you… What the hell. Okay, here goes._

_You are my hero. Like, the reason I took up ballet and went pro is entirely because of you. I kept all of your tapes, even the old ones I had to first put on tape and then find again to convert to DVD and I watched them all the time and like, you were amazing. I loved watching you dance because you loved it so much and your happiness was astounding and humbling and what am I saying. Thank you so much for having shown me that side of you, for giving me such passion for dancing._

_A loyal fan._

  


Natasha didn’t know how long she fingered the letter for.

She didn’t know if at this point she was straight up hallucinating or not. 

She’d thought that, out of all the things she could be remembered for, no one would remember _that_ about her. And yet someone (an anonymous someone, unfortunately), had come out of the woodwork and praised her… for dancing.

She… actually hadn’t seriously danced since joining SHIELD.   
The spy had kept in shape, of course, one does not simply forget the old habits, but she had not considered getting back en pointe for a long time. Dancing had been her first love and passion, but she reasoned, maybe it was for the best to leave the past just where it was. In the past.

Still, she confessed she felt flattered at having a fan that didn’t love her for the blood on her hands or the potential femme fatale she was.

She wondered if she could actually recover those old tapes, as loathe as she was to ask Stark. 

“Hey, JARVIS,” she began.  

The AI would report to Stark, but wouldn't be an ass about it. Not that the billionaire would necessarily be one, she was pretty sure he could be tactful… If the need arose, maybe.

“Yes, Miss Romanoff?”

“I need a couple of things, if possible.”

* * *

  


Avengers Tower was a great place to spend time. 

Tony had remodelled and renovated the whole thing after Loki’s attack, accepting a lot of input.

Clint would know, he’d helped and checked the whole security features. If he casually happened to personally booby trap the vents and navigate them at leisure, well then.

In fact, Clint Barton absolutely adored Avengers Tower’s vents. They were new, so very clean and had just the right amount of sliiiide sound you could make from the inside, they were big enough for him to comfortably slither all over the tower _and_ they had the most improbable exits. 

Like the very volatile labs. Or the new gym facilities.

He still hadn’t visited them all.

Right now, however, the Amazing Hawkeye was on a mission. Since the letter from Norway, he’d caught his partner woolgathering no less than five times and managed to sneak up on her twice. This wasn’t too bad, maybe, but Nat was his best friend, and if she needed his support he’d be there.

Speaking of which. _Found you._

Natasha was sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat on the floor of the gym. The woman was dressed in leather and had her combat boots on, but she hadn’t used the mat and Clint knew for a fact she wasn’t on mission roster. The fact that she wasn’t sweaty or her hair wasn’t out of place was nothing to linger on, the woman could probably emerge unruffled from an exploding building.

A bottle of vodka was neatly lined up at the edge of the mat, but it was still uncorked. That was weird. Her coping mechanism usually involved vodka first, and bad news later. 

Instead, Nat was completely focused on the Starkpad in her hands, the letter from Norway at her feet.

Clint frowned. 

“You can come down, Clint,” Natasha interrupted his train of thoughts. “I’m not in the mood to hit you, right now.”  
  
Clint snorted. “Oh yes, you just convinced me.” But he crawled out of the vent anyways. 

“So,” he started, “I’m not one to push, Nat, but you’ve been pretty out of it recently.” He eyed the letter curiously and then her pad. “What do you have here? Something I should worry about?” 

Nat’s lips curved. “Subtle, you are not.” She inched her tabled towards him.

Clint’s breath caught. “That’s you.” 

It was. A happier,  blonde Natasha dancing in black and white to the notes of some classical piece he didn’t recognize.

“It was,” Nat murmured. “Irina Lebedeva, prima ballerina at only 17! Of course, I was forty-two at the time…”

The archer knew his friend’s covers had often been dancer roles, especially under Red Room. He also knew Natasha had loved dancing when she was younger. 

“I left my pointe shoes behind once I left Mother Russia. I believed I disrespected the art of ballet too much to perform again, Red on my hands and all that. And then things happen,” she added, almost wistfully. The girl on the stage jumped across the wooden floor, twirled on her toes a couple of times, froze on the spot, and then bowed to a cheering crowd.

Clint looked at her in askance. He and Nat didn’t really need words, but articulating her thoughts aloud always seemed to help.   
  
She just shrugged and wordlessly handed him the letter, watching him closely.

_Okay._ He could now appreciate not having touched the bottle earlier. 

“Okay.” _Okay._ “Well, this is very of… flattering, I suppose? Whoa. I did not see that coming.”

“Me neither,” Natasha assured quietly. She had that look she used when she was trying to find some hidden motive and ended up overthinking the whole thing. Which he had to kill now, because this was amazing.

“I think this is the best fan mail you received so far, you know?” he remarked offhandedly. “Also, that must take some dedication. But look, you got someone become enamoured with something you love. It’s brilliant. Have you written back?” 

Natasha shook her head. “Untraceable. No address, no signature, nothing. JARVIS traced the mail up to Oslo, but then had to give up because we can’t trace it to the smaller villages, where there are no cyber data.”  
  
“Aww, no. That sucks, Nat.” That was a bummer. 

“Mh.” He loved and hated that noncommittal sound she always used to terminate the conversation. “I think I would like to go back to ballet,” she breathed, after a long silence.

“If it makes you happy, I think it’s a splendid idea.”   
  
He watched her face break into a tiny smile and bumped his shoulder into her. “So, you sharing that bottle you got there?”

* * *

  


“So, repeat that again, slowly,” Darcy sniffed at the bumbling voice at the phone. 

The day had started normally enough, even better than usual, if she said so herself. She managed to get all of her greens at the supermarket, the bosslady had eaten the entire salmon portion she’d cooked without complaining, they’d gotten a full ten hours sleep. It was a grandiose day.

SHIELD had other plans, of course. And they sent a poor tech lackey to deliver the blow, too.

“I-... You-... SHIELD is very sorry for the inconvenience, Ma’am. Agent Coulson buried the information very securely and we-”

“You mean you fucking lost us, Agent- What’s your name again?”  

“M-Marks, Ma’am.” Agent Marks was, unfortunately for him, the designated victim of the day.   

“Great, wonderful. Agent Marks, you had us recluse in bumbutt, Tromso for over six months and just now you deign yourself to call and go ‘Oh I’m sorry, it was for your safety, but now you should totally give up your lives again and uproot’?!” Darcy blew through her nose like an angry elephant. “Dude.”

“I’m- I’m very sorry, Ma’am,” he babbled. “But we can no longer fund the observatory and - the grants- Please understand.”

“You’re telling me we’re being sent away, with nowhere to go because, and I _quote from you_ , ‘We had to rescind your contract with Culver to send you to your current employment facility’ and now you just want to be rid of us?! And you expect me to _understand_?! _Are you for real?!_ ”

Rage was a wonderful feeling right now, because Darcy was pretty sure she would faint if she let go of it. They were in a very far very foreign country with no money and no grant, which had apparently all come from SHIELD that was abandoning them now that red-and-caped-from-Asgard was no longer around to keep the secret agents slash spies in check. It must be a joke.

“I’m really sorry.” Agent Marks even sounded sorry, which made Darcy deflate a bit. “I- I’ve been told to say, that SHIELD is terminating the cooperation agreement they had with Dr Foster and tha- that-” continued Marks, whose voice had lost the spine he’d gained five seconds ago, “that a thousand dollars compensation would be sent to you for plane tickets- I’m sorry I really am, I’m just the messenger here.”

Of course, had this been Agent Coulson or someone else up the food chain she’d have screamed more, but as much as she’d love to curse Marks into oblivion, he was as guilty as the dog sitter next door. What an asshole this Sitwell guy, whose life hobbies were clearly delegating ungrateful tasks to minions and _probably_ eating eel.

Darcy exhaled. “Not even plane tickets. I- I see. We’ll take the money, just… I don’t even know what to tell you.”  
  
“I don’t know either, ma’am,” replied the man, “I’m really sorry.”

He hung up after the usual platitudes.

_Okay,_ Darcy’s mind raced, clawing itself out of the daze it was descending into. A thousand dollars would get her and Jane to the US comfortably and pay for some food, but then? They’d have to find a grant or another solution, and soon. 

“Who was it at the phone, Darcy? I heard you shouting.” Jane had a pen between her teeth, it was surprising she was even able to properly pronounce the words.

“SHIELD.” Jane choked and turned to her. “They kindly let us know that they terminated their partnership with you and that we’re now penniless.”

“WHAT!” Boss lady was not pleased. And stumped.

“Yep.”

Jane Foster wasn’t a big and imposing woman. She was, however, a pretty scary woman when angered. Apparently, hiding the fact that SHIELD was actually _paying people_ to keep them away and _then_ remove funds was a nice way to anger her.  She took out her phone with a swiftness Darcy didn’t expect of her.

“Yes, this is Jane Foster- Who are you- Where’s Coulson? Wait, what do you mean he’s not available?”

Darcy watched amazed as Jane Foster, astrophysicist, screamed herself hoarse with stooge after stooge until she managed to get straight to screaming into Sitwell’s ear.

“ -I don’t fucking care about your offer to come to DC and work for your precious SHIELD. I’m calling Stark, I bet his healthcare plan is BETTER THAN YOURS.” The woman screamed and hung up. She then proceeded to turn off her phone.

“SHIELD offered us a job?” Darcy asked sceptically. Agent Marks didn’t mention that.

“I actually think he offered it just so that I would stop screaming”, huffed Jane. “It doesn’t matter, anyways. Stark has been calling me nonstop for the last month, I just need to accept that offer.” She sent Darcy a weird look. “I mean, I love it here but we can’t afford it, and if we go with Stark we might actually be able to make something instead of freeloading and just- He offered me a full gig with housing and I should have talked about it with you but-”

“Whoa boss lady, calm down.” 

Jane took a deep breath. “If you want to come with me, of course. I’m sure I can get you out. You’re some kind of dancer, right? I see you trying to get some training done when no one’s looking in the morning. I think Stark could get you home, right, but I really liked living with you and it would be totally cool if you stayed, right?”

Darcy giggled. “You’re the boss, Janey. If you say we’re going to NY then we’re going to NY. We’re keeping SHIELD’s dirty 1000 dollars though. Wish I asked more, but the kid was so miserable…”  
  
“Sitwell is a right jerk,” agreed boss lady. “Let me clear that up with Stark, he sent me an email like three days ago. Also, what kind of dancer are you, by the way? I’m quite sure Stark’s got a gym somewhere in his phallic Tower-”  
  
“I was actually a ballerina, Janey.”  
  
Jane’s eyes widened. “No. Way.” 

* * *

  


Stark Tower was basically its own city in the middle of Manhattan.

It was the biggest independent compound Darcy had ever seen. She wouldn’t be surprised to find out they had their own farms for food production and could declare themselves a sovereign nation, it was that big and that enriched with facilities.

Very early on, Darcy had found that no one in the ‘house’ was employed to cook, and everyone was expected to cook their own or use take-away. Which, no. 

The ex-ballerina would hardly be the best role model for healthy eating habits, lord knew it wasn’t in the job description, but she was a thrifty thing and knew that the kind of takeaway Stark would call was bound to be more expensive than her week’s food budget. So she hastily took over the kitchen, before Jane reverted to her favoured Pop-Tarts diet and Tony followed suit. 

Every cent she could save now was something that could come in handy in the future.

Stark Tower was not, unexpectedly, a lively place. 

And it was deserted. At least the place she lived in.

Like, outside of Stark Industries workers and some facilities, the highest 20 floors or so were completely at the Avengers’ disposal. Which meant she basically hadn’t met anyone new in the last two weeks.

Well, that wasn’t exactly fair. According to Tony, whom she had basically adopted as ‘child incapable of feeding himself’ much like Jane, the rest of the Avengers worked for SHIELD so were extremely busy and Thor was out of planet.

So it was basically just Tony and Bruce living there until the rest came back. 

Sometimes, Bruce would magically appear in the kitchen with her to help her cook. 

He, at least, could give her actual pointers on how to properly cook Indian food. 

“It’s not that quiet either,” he jokingly complained one day, “Tony’s always up to something and when the others are in the building you seriously feel the space is not enough. Clint pops out of nowhere and Natasha always _knows_. You don’t know what exactly, but she knows.”

And yeah, Darcy had worked out by now that she had sent an anonymous letter to Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, who probably and almost certainly was not the same person as Irina Mikhailovna and _please somebody kill her._ Hopefully, she’d take it in stride and not murder her or something once she found out. Better still, no one would trace the letter back to her. That would be nice.

For now, she would just… ignore the whole thing. 

And wait for everyone to be back so that she could be properly introduced.  So far, any attempt to recover files about the Avengers (she didn’t care one bit about the redacted shit, she just wanted food allergies and similar so that she could actually plan for some communal dinner) but had been repeatedly rebuffed by Sitwell and his henchmen. 

“I don’t want your damn sensitive files, dude!” she huffed for the third time at the black screen of her phone. 

“Hey, JARVIS?” she tried, then, just in case. “You don’t happen to be able to give me some information about the other Avengers, can you?”  
  
“Apologies, Miss Lewis, but I’m afraid only people with clearance may request information about the Team, as Sir calls it.”

A suspicious noise from the common room distracted her for a second. _Weird._ She turned to the AI again. “Well, I didn’t mean some real information. I was more interested in ‘how do they eat their salad’?”

“I’m afraid I’m not privy to complete information about that, Miss Lewis.”

Worth a try.  The noise increased. “Well, thanks anyways, JARVIS. JANE!” she thundered suddenly.

There was utter silence from the other room. And then, “It wasn’t me, it was Stark!”

“Nice try, boss lady. Stark is in Malibu for the next two days.”

“...Crap.”

Darcy sighed. “Do I need to come over there?”

Jane’s head emerged from the door suspiciously. “...No? Don’t worry, I’ll fix it before anyone notices.” 

“Fine,” she huffed. As long as she fixed it. “I’m about done here, if you want to go to the labs.”  
  
“Yeah, sure,” Jane smiled excitedly, “there’s a lot to cover today. Speaking of which, no sorry that’s got nothing to do with this, but indulge me, where were you this morning? You weren’t in your room, I knocked for over thirty minutes.”

Darcy blinked. “That was determination, boss lady,” she snorted at Jane’s disgruntled face. “I was downstairs in the gym, though. I always go there in the morning. If I’m lucky I can get two to three hours of training before you science! people get up.”

The astrophysicist sputtered. “You- Every day- Darcy, you wake up at six every day?”

“Five thirty,” confirmed the young woman, proudly. “It’s why I’ve got that thing in my contract that says that my work hours end at eight and after that, unless the world is ending I am a Free Woman. Must be an early bird if you want to science by ten in the morning.”

“I’m honestly impressed,” confessed Jane. 

“Don’t be,” grunted the girl back, “I used to do something like… six hours a day, I’m barely keeping up with daily warm-ups. If I were a pro it would be almost shameful.”

“Still. You’ve got to show me something, though. I can’t believe we’ve known each other for years and I still haven’t watched you dance.”

“Sure… don’t expect much, though. I am _so_ rusty.”

* * *

  


Jane went to watch her assistant the following morning, just as Darcy was finishing her warm-up routine. The sun wasn’t up yet, which was some sort of travesty but she _had_ asked to join the intern, so she wouldn’t be the one to talk about it. 

She sat at the edge of the parquet in her pyjamas and watched raptly as the young woman moved through motions she could never hope to replicate. How much time had Darcy given to ballet in her short life? Just… how many hours and sweat to reach that level? She insisted that she wasn’t that good and yet, why was she in college for Political Science anyway?

Darcy stood perfectly on her toes as she spun on herself once, twice, three times. 

Jane admitted that she had no idea how good a pro was even supposed to be, after all ballet was never something she had been interested in, but… _shit_. Darcy was good. Like, _really good._

“Oh, my.” A soft breath behind her broke her from her musings.

It was Virginia Potts. 

Jane and Darcy had barely seen the woman after she’d introduced herself, Jane and Miss Potts having very different schedules (being an actual CEO and Tony Stark’s girlfriend, Jane surmised Miss Potts had very little time for herself), but every time the woman had looked perfectly polished and pristine. The yoga pants she was wearing that morning were probably the closest to a ‘just gotten out of bed look’ she would _ever_ see. She was sure she was gaping at her, but the CEO wasn’t really paying attention, her gaze fixated on the dancer.

Dancer who finally took notice of them over the music. 

Darcy blushed a fiery scarlet, lost concentration and in a second she was gripping the bar on the wall. 

“Jeebus!” she cursed.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Miss Lewis,” Miss Potts was very quick to apologize, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Darcy was still very red in the face, but managed to wave the apology away. “It’s no problem, Miss Potts, I was just about done anyway.” She surreptitiously tried to fix her leotard over her shoulders. 

“You were so good, Darcy!” Jane exclaimed, successfully breaking up the awkward tension that was about to follow. 

Darcy smiled modestly. “Jane, we talked about this, I’m really-”  
  
“I concur,” Pepper agreed. “You’re very good. I didn’t know you danced, or I would have offered this part of the Tower the moment we met, Miss Lewis.”

The following ‘call me Darcy’ was met with a pleased smile. “Well, do call me Pepper, then. I’m sure we’ll be great friends once I actually find the time between Tony and the board.” They all laughed at that. “Again, I know you’ve made yourselves home but please don’t hesitate to use any of the facilities. Honestly, I thought the only one using this room was Natasha…”

Jane frowned. “Natasha, as in the Black Widow?”  
  
“Oh, yes,” Pepper nodded. “She comes here every day when she’s not on missions or doing classified jobs. She’s an exceptional ballerina. As far as I know from her files, she was a professional some time ago.”

Was Jane imagining it, or was Darcy a bit paler now?

* * *

  


The rest of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes came back home two months later, looking grimy, tired and definitely worse for wear.

They came in a big bundle of bruises, tightly held together by tape, just in time for dinner.

Darcy had just finished cooking the rice and was promptly getting the dough ready for the crust, when she heard a grating, scrappy sound. Her eyes immediately whipped to Jane, who raised her hands in the air “It’s not me, Darce, I’m here.”

“Mh,” Darcy frowned, but then shrugged it off.

And then, her carefully placed rice, evenly spread on the cutting board to cool down, was full of purple wearing, curse spitting human.

Without thinking, Darcy and Jane scrambled out of their seats. The intern grabbed the iron ladle on the table and hit him as hard as she could.

“OW, WOMAN, GOD!”

_Ooops._

Darcy had just enough time to look incredulously at the fallen man, that someone was laughing their ass off from behind her. 

“Are you okay, Clint?” Ah, that was Steve Rogers, right?

“Yeah, kinda. Ow, woman, that was harsh,” the aforementioned Clint, aka Hawkeye, complained. Irritation sparked as soon as she remembered where _exactly_ he had landed.

“I felled Thor for much less,” Darcy sniffed haughtily. “And you just ruined dinner, so thank you.”

“Aww, man,” he poked experimentally at the rice and took a taste. “It was even good! What was it, by the way?”

“It was Kulebiaka. Or at least, supposed to be. Of course, had I known that A, someone else was coming for dinner and B, someone was crawling through the ventilation system I would have chosen something else. Or just, you know, taser first ladle second.”

“Well, am I glad you didn’t taser him first,” came a smooth voice behind her. Ah man, she didn’t have to turn to know exactly who _that_ was. “Did I just hear that someone messed with my very first Russian dinner since Two Months of SHIELD, Clint?” She sounded… exceptionally amused, despite all the threatening demeanour that was honestly scaring Darcy shitless.

“Oh, come on, Nat, how the fuck was I even supposed to know?!”

“Don’t hit him, Nat. We’ll have to fix him if you do,” Captain America sighed resignedly. He then turned to her. “You must be Jane Foster, nice to meet you.”

Darcy blinked. Once. Twice. “Ah… no?” she pointed to the astrophysicist that was trying to save what remained of the dough. “That’s Jane.”

Captain Rogers smiled embarrassedly, and aww, were those dimples? “Sorry, your profiles didn’t have any picture nor any important file apart from Dr Foster’s research… I…” She liked him immediately.   
  
“Don’t worry, my dude!” Darcy smiled, “It’s the glasses, they tell me all the time. I’m Darcy.” She filed any question she had about her missing or heavily redacted files for later. She was pretty sure Coulson knew exactly every time she’d picked her nose when she had been seven. 

Hawkeye was still grumpily chasing grains from his suit and Steve was properly introducing himself to the boss, so the young woman busied herself with mourning her dinner.

“My dinner,” she whined.  
  
“What a pity.” _Oh man. The Black Widow was behind her._ Her maybe idol was right behind her. And she’d sent her a very real very awkward fan mail. Her neck prickled and she tried not to tense. _Stay cool, Darce_. “He always ruins the good stuff.” Natasha Romanoff sighed. 

The intern laughed nervously. “It’s- it’s okay… According to Bruce and Tony, you all eat like locusts, so it wouldn’t have been enough anyway. I’ll just ask JARVIS to deliver pizza. Unless you don’t want, you know, to share with us? I mean, it’d be cool if you stayed?”

“...Are you offering dinner without looking me in the eye?” Okay, now the voice was definitely ‘amused but could be irritated or sad’. And the spy was right. She’d felled Thor, she could look a woman in the eye.

“Sorry!” she laughed awkwardly and faced the woman.

Any lingering doubt or hope she’d been mistaken, any chance of coincidence was swept away forever. Natasha Romanoff and Irina Mikhailovna Lebedeva were one the same. She wasn’t blonde, and her hair was free behind her shoulders clad in an expensive looking tac suit, but Darcy could never mistake her face, her lines, her body. It hadn’t changed one iota since she’d danced Coppelia in 1978. 

The part of her brain that still hadn’t forgotten how to function in front of this amazing woman, her inspiration and lifelong goal, went into overdrive. _Fuck._

She had confessed she recognized a previously invisible international Russian spy. Was she going to be ‘disappeared’?

The woman, however, wasn’t doing anything but stare politely at her with a deliberately non-threatening smile. “I’m not going to eat you, you know?” she added with a resigned sigh.

Darcy flushed. _That so wasn’t it._ “What? Oh, no of course not, Baba Yaga’s have iron teeth.” She slapped her hands in front of her. What.

But that was probably a good answer, because Natasha’s smile felt a tad more real, Steve turned to her and Clint honest to God howled in laughter. “Baba Yaga! You heard that, Nat?!”

“Anyways, I’m sorry we started out like this, I really really admire you. I’m Darcy, Jane’s intern and second most important member of the Jane nation.”  
  
“It’s a brain trust, Darcy, not a nation.” Jane interrupted petulantly, but shook everyone’s hands all the same.

“Whatevs, boss lady. Where you go there goes my nation, so we’re a nation.”

“That’s not how it works!”

“Is too. JARVIS, my man, do me one and order pizza for everyone, yes? How many do you eat anyway? One each?”  
  
“I’ve seen Nat eat two on her own once. And one was mine!” cried dramatically Clint. Okay, she kinda liked this character. It was exactly her type.

Her head whipped to the other woman. “Two?!”

Natasha sniffed delicately, “one does not tell, Clint.” 

Three minutes later, a cutting board that Darcy could swear was in a drawer on the opposite side of the kitchen ended up very close to Clint’s derriere. 

* * *

  


Just as Bruce had said, with the three now home, space and solitude in the Tower became much harder to achieve.

Steve was almost a perpetual fixture in the gym, always on treadmills or punching bags when he wasn’t discussing with one of the other Avengers or someone from SHIELD.

Clint and Natasha were _anywhere and everywhere_. Much like the Basilisk in Harry Potter, you had to use a mirror in every corner just to avoid jumping or running or crashing into them, especially because it wouldn’t be them falling on their butt. Natasha, in particular, was an exceptionally strong critter to crash into. 

And she was a complete troll.   
  
Darcy had pegged Clint as the most mischievous of the two (according to Tony, the two came in a pair so it was okay to just clump them in their own ball of spy-assassin trickiness) but she had been very, very wrong.

While the archer was one for really obvious and sometimes really childish pranks, Natasha was the kind of mischievous that translated into: strategically retaliating any of the pranks she was on the receiving end of (and no one was able to actually pin it to her), matchmaking pretty much anyone and setting people up on date with alarming speed and, last but not least, desensitization training. 

The latter consisted in her trying to jumpscare the poor civilians into getting used to surprises. She wasn’t malicious in her intentions and Darcy understood what the woman was trying to do, but _shit_. She wasn’t a fan of repeating the cereal and milk accident. Nope. But she couldn’t even ignore the droll attempts at peopling.

After a couple of weeks, it was difficult to see Natasha as a particularly scary individual. Dangerous, yes, but not scary.

Darcy yawned sleepily. 

Jane had insisted they stay a couple of hours more on the job to finish calculations and that was fine, but she was really feeling those missing two hours now, at 5.30am, as she dragged her tired body to the kitchen.

She moved on autopilot through her routine, belatedly reminding JARVIS to ping Jane at nine if she wasn’t back by then whilst drinking her coffee.

She had no time for a real breakfast, maybe later. She did prepare some croissants the evening before, ready to be baked. 

She grabbed her towel carelessly and went down to the room she used every morning.

Only, that side of the gym was already occupied.

* * *

  


_One, Two, Three, Step._

_One, Two, Three, Turn._

There was nothing but the music and the sound of her feet on the parquet. 

The steps came familiar to her in a way she hadn’t expected at the beginning. Her body had been remodelled and reprogrammed so many times, it was a miracle it even remembered what a first position even was.

Yet, it filled her with happiness and satisfaction.

The way she would stand on her pointe shoes and clear the floor in one motion. How she could jump, and leap, and twirl as if nothing could stop her and catch her.

Sometimes she liked to follow the choreography step by step, just like she’d practised all those years ago. Other times she just went with the flow. Oh, Madame would shriek at the lack of precision and she could feel her voice in her mind whenever she missed a step, but she could care less. These demons had been slain long, long ago.

She felt the steps coming her way before she saw their owner.

They were light and quick, almost silent.

She knew who it was; it was Lewis.

Darcy had always possessed this kind of innate step, always walking on her tiptoes whenever she wasn’t in those oversized slippers she loved to wear whenever she wasn’t working with Foster.

Natasha wondered why the woman was awake this early. She herself didn’t wake up before seven and even then rarely bothered leaving the room before the Tower was fully awake. The silent corridors usually made her senses go haywire and she had to turn on the television to have some sort of white noise to tune out. She looked out of the corner of her eye as the self-appointed glorified intern went through practised motions with a towel in her hand. She was used to coming here every morning, apparently. She couldn’t say what, but there was something off about her.

The moment Darcy spotted her, her mouth opened, her eyes widened and the big, fluffy towel dropped to the ground. She then blushed lightly and tried to make herself as invisible as possible.

It was almost adorable the way her brain was trying to compute the scene in front of her.

_Well_ , Natasha reasoned, _that was probably the most undressed she’d ever seen me_. If she didn’t count the worn-out suit the day they met.  

Still, Natasha was polite enough not to stop her exercises to make remarks about it. Or Darcy’s presence down here at this time of the day. Foster probably wasn’t the most considerate boss with the promise of Science! And Darcy had as much right to train here as everyone else, be it with the tapis roulant or whatever at the crack of dawn. And she’d make a point not to make her uncomfortable as much as possible. She was aware of the effects she had on civilians, sometimes.

She righted her position to a perfect 90° arabesque and went back to her training.

The intern didn’t move to the other room at all.

Darcy stood on the spot, just watching her from the door. At one point, she must have decided to actually do something, for she inched towards the wall and just lowered to the ground until she was sat with her back against it. 

She seemed content to just watch her dance.

And she was a captive audience. Attentive, rapt and enthusiastic, Natasha could almost see stars in her eyes. 

It was honestly humbling and quite flattering. 

A ringing sound interrupted her motions.

“It’s seven o'clock, miss Lewis”, JARVIS reported faithfully. Apparently, Darcy was a regular enough that JARVIS had protocols to keep her informed of the time.

“Curses!” the woman exclaimed and scrambled to her feet.

It was then that the spy noticed the differences in Darcy Lewis’s attire.

Her hair was tied up in a messy bun and… she frowned. “Was your chest always this small?” ...On second thought, that she could have worded better.

Lewis’s eyes dropped to her thick sweater covered breasts. “You looked at my breasts?” she cringed, and so did Natasha. “Wait, no, don’t answer that.”

The younger woman pressed her lips tightly together, as if debating with herself. “They’re bound,” she said simply.

Bound? Things were adding up with Darcy Lewis in Natasha’s mind. And it had taken her embarrassingly long to notice.

Darcy Lewis who never drank anything but water and sometimes juice.

Darcy Lewis who stressed for everyone to eat but then always seemed to calculate her calories twice.   
  
Darcy Lewis who went to bed before midnight religiously.

Darcy Lewis who knew how to patch sore muscles no matter which, and that always seemed to know how to fix Clint.

Darcy Lewis who always had her feet covered and never wore shorts or never went around without leg warmers.

Darcy Lewis who bound her breasts.

Darcy Lewis who was now shedding the sweater and revealing the upper part of a leotard, chest bindings prominently visible under the elastic fabric. 

The spy stared, blankly. 

“...Surprise?” Darcy said hesitantly. 

“You’re a dancer,” her brain wasn’t really catching up. _Yes, we gathered that already._

“Ex. Ballerina, actually,” the intern closed her eyes, as if expecting some kind of reaction, and Natasha couldn’t fathom what she was expecting.  
  
Of course, she didn’t think the youngest member of their weird family would be the one to actually surprise her.  
  
“Well, aren’t we full of surprises,” she almost purred, but modulated her voice just in time. Darcy seemed almost pleased to throw her off her loop. _Well, she should be._

“Here to get some training done, I assume.”  
  
“Oh, yes,” Darcy scratched the back of her neck sheepishly. “Bosslady will wake up in two hours and by then my ‘me-time’ will be over.”

“Do you want me to go?” She had always the impression she was making the intern feel self-conscious in a wa- “NO!” Her eyes flickered to the blushing woman. “I mean,” Darcy coughed. “There’s enough space for the both of us, right?” 

“Right. Of course.” Darcy blushed more, and well, okay then.

* * *

  


Darcy got used to training with Natasha every morning from then on.

When she made it down to the barre, the beautiful spy would already be there warming up. They would do something together, then individually. Other times, they just helped each other (Natasha helped her, mostly) with more difficult figures and move from there.

She wasn’t stupid, she had worked out by now that she was completely, a hundred percent outclassed, but while this would have been a problem in the competitive environment she’d grown in, the non-judgemental and friendly presence of Natasha was something she’d grown to like. A lot.

She had missed the company of others sharing her own passion a lot. Jane was supportive and properly awed at the few tricks she’d shown her, but couldn’t really understand. The first time Darcy had gutted her pointe shoes with her hook and needle, bosslady had actually screamed. 

Natasha had laughed to her face and confessed she once used her knife to remove the felt inside, because she couldn’t find the proper equipment and Clint was being slow. 

It was _so refreshing_. 

By then four more months had passed, and Natasha’s and Clint’s ban on field work was over.

“We’ll be back sooner than you think,” the spy reassured her as she put pressure on her back to help her go lower towards the ground. “Keep up the good work, and you won’t even miss us.”

But she hadn’t left yet, and Darcy missed her already. It was probably that, the reason she got started early on Bad Decision number 700 (or so, she’d lost count). 

“So, hey,” she fidgeted, earning a poke on the side, “ooph fine,” she aligned her position better, “I was thinking… when you’re back… we could,” _okay, this was hard,_ “do something together, like, the two of us, yeah?”

The pressure on her back disappeared and she lost balance. “Ouch.”

“Sorry,” Natasha apologized promptly and helped her sit properly. They finished their routine in silence and Darcy was really starting to regret this, because yeah, this was going up on her list of mistakes, really.

“The two of us?” Darcy’s eyes flickered to the spy. Her look was a tad confused, maybe?

Darcy met her searching gaze. “I mean, if you want to? Mh?”

Natasha smiled, “I think I’d like that very much.”

* * *

  


August 7th was going to be a long day.

Darcy’s alarm clock had been forgotten somewhere, to be fished right after midnight, JARVIS had been alerted not to disturb her in any way before 9am unless Stuff was Happening (and unless there was a capital S, it wasn’t Stuff and she wasn’t going to answer) and Darcy was ready to spend the day as if nothing was happening.

And it wasn’t, not really. She just… Yeah, she was going to take the day off from dancing, just for today.

Obviously, Stuff started happening at seven.

“I swear to you, I don’t know what happened!” Tony was protesting as Dum-E kept firing the trusty fire extinguisher relentlessly. 

“There was a fire in my lab, Stark, FIRE!” retaliated Jane, “how did that thing even enter the labs while on fire?!”

“It’s not one of mine, for Fuck’s sake!” Stark was shaking a potted something in his hands. It looked like mould of some kind and it was clearly and merrily, well, on fire. 

It was later found out that the mould was Bruce’s. Darcy’s disappointed stare was probably going to haunt him forever, but he was supposed to be the _responsible one_ , come on!

Then, Tony carelessly dropped the PR bomb that was “oh well no, we use the PR department for SI but we don’t have an Avengers specialized PR department” that was going to haunt _her_ forever. And she didn’t like Political Science enough to dip her toes into that nightmare. Oh no. 

She was, however, going to grill him tomorrow about actually creating one, even if they had to compromise with SHIELD a bit.

Speaking of SHIELD, Agent Marks called again, trying to renew Sitwell’s offer to come to DC, and this worsened even more Jane’s mood, which reflected in hers too.

Darcy was ever so glad the day was over she didn’t even comment on Steve’s growing number of unanswered correspondence on the living room table.

She was going to ignore everything until tomorrow. She was _done_. 

So much for her day off.

Determined to have at least the evening for herself, she took a beer from the fridge, something she would have never considered because her alcohol tolerance was that low and she didn’t need to give the guys any kind of ammo (and she wasn’t a cute drunk), and made her way to the gym.

Steve was long gone by now, and Tony and Bruce usually didn’t stalk the facilities as much as Captain Rogers did. 

Here, in blissful silence and finally, finally, peace, she uncorked the bottle and took a long gulp.

“Aren’t you supposed to swear off every kind of alcohol?” Darcy groaned loudly. This was so not the moment. 

“For fuck’s- I just wanted a day off!” she whined. 

Natasha reared back, frowning. “Sorry. Should I go?”

Darcy slapped a hand on her face and gestured to the woman to stay. “Sorry. It’s not your fault. Welcome back,” she took a deep breath. “I’m afraid I won’t be good company right now.”  To emphasize her point, she took another swig from the bottle.

The spy shrugged it off, holding her own bottle (it looked like vodka, but Darcy wasn’t going to try it) out. 

“So, I’m assuming that the series of unfortunate accidents that happened today is not the actual reason you’re being moody, because you’ve faced much worse.”

Darcy sighed again. It was true. “You’re always perceptive, even when you’re not even present.”

“I must keep updated on this minefield’s situation,” Natasha grinned. But she made no attempt at striking any further conversation, waiting for Darcy.

And yeah, what the hell. “It’s. Fine, it’s probably silly, okay? But yeah. So, today is August 7th.”

Natasha nodded and waited patiently. “Today is my day off, because it’s supposed to be Boob’s appreciation day.”

“I like your boobs.”

“Damn right, everyone should like them. The girls are awesome.” Darcy nodded vigorously. “But it wasn’t always like this.” She took a deep breath. “So. When I was 18, I was going for pro. And I was going big. Like, leader big. The auditions for the next season’s Nutcracker were going out and my teachers were pretty sure I was going to be the Sugarplum Fairy. And this was like, my dream, okay?” It was so long ago, and yet. “Long story short, body genes happened. One moment I was a shoe-in for the Fairy, the next my breasts grew two cups size in one month. And I tried binding them, and hiding it, but shit.”

Natasha sighed. “That’s harsh. Centre of gravity completely off, having to rework every jump every position. Sucks.”

“Oh yes, it sucked let me tell you,” Darcy smiled humorlessly. “Madame had the brightest idea, then.”

Natasha’s eyes filled with realization and understanding. “Plastic surgery.”

“Yup. Which,” the woman shuddered, “not happening. Like, not even if they paid the whole thing, I wouldn’t have done it. I was in the programme two days later. My career over.”

The Russian spy cocked her head. “Programme?”

“The F-Programme. The one for dancers that need to enter the ‘commoners world’ once their career is over. Political Science just happened.” Darcy took another sip of beer. The world didn’t seem so bleak once she got everything out. 

“And so you spend one day to remind you of what you lost… Doesn’t seem productive.”  
  
“Oh no,” the ex-ballerina shook her head vehemently. “I need to remind myself that I’m awesome and I did the right thing. I gave up my dream, but it was for the best. Also, it led me to Jane, and Thor, and all of you.” She smiled.

Natasha returned her smile and pressed their shoulders together. “You made the best choice. And your boobs are as awesome as you are.”  
  
“That’s right!”

* * *

  


It was as if some kind of invisible barrier had disappeared between them.

Darcy didn’t really understand it, because she was kind of used to oversharing and scaring people off, but on the contrary, her word-vomiting all over Natasha had made them bond even more.

Their daily meetups in the gym had been anticipated, and they would now have breakfast together which, if Darcy stopped and considered the fact that Nat was an internationally famous spy, spoke volumes of their friendship. She didn’t think her stomach would stop fluttering anytime soon every time she thought about it. 

“Mgmhmmm…!” she mumbled incoherently into her coffee.

Nat snorted. “What?”

Darcy blinked, “what what?”

“...Nothing.” The spy giggled. Darcy blushed. What had she done now? _Did she have something on her face?_

“...Okay then.” She rose from the char and put her mug in the sink. “Hey, JARVIS, do warn me when it’s eight thirty, yes? I need to come up and get the cake ready.”

“Cake?” Nat inquired curiously. 

“Mh mh,” Darcy confirmed. “Jane’s birthday. I’m making her birthday cake and everything. I mean, it’s almost ready in the fridge, but it still needs some work.”

“I didn’t know it was Foster’s birthday.” Nat sounded completely nonplussed.

Darcy gaped. “Seriously? It wasn’t in her file?” the other woman shook her head. “Okay, I really have to ask. I know you can’t probably tell me so on so forth, but what the hell is in our files, anyways?”  
  
“Nothing. It’s all redacted and blank, of course. Foster’s has some of her public research.”

“...Are you for real? How? Why? I was pretty sure Agent Final Boss knew every curse word I said in sixth grade!”

“He probably did,” snorted Natasha. “It was something Coulson did. For possible recruits, I mean,” she elaborated.   
  
“He’d blank everything until he was certain you would say no or you were inducted in SHIELD. Once you were under his wing, it didn’t matter what kind of past you had. Of course, everything he had on you would need to be recompiled, now that he’s dead.” She had this pinched look on her face, even if the smile was fond.

“ _Agent is dead?!_ ”  When did that happen? And Sitwell, oh that worm, he didn’t say that! Poor Agent.

“Mh,” Natasha’s eyes lowered. The tension in the room escalated. 

“Okay, got it. So,” she tried to joke, “your files are all blacked out, super redacted too?”

“No,” Nat’s eyes had a peculiar look and she was smiling thinly. “I wasn’t the kind of player you would consider recruitable.” She scratched her cheek pensively. “You haven’t read my file?”

Darcy’s lips pursed. “I haven’t read anyone’s. No clearance if you don’t work for SHIELD.”

Natasha hummed, but said nothing more.

* * *

  


The next day saw Tony ridiculously excited about the new data he and Bruce had collected about Loki’s sceptre, that was still in SHIELD’s hands for safekeeping. Why they were still studying the thing, Darcy couldn’t fathom. Clint evidently despised it, Natasha wasn’t hiding her disgust either. 

“But we must celebrate! Tomorrow night, movie night, everyone should come!”

Darcy made a pleased sound. They hadn’t done anything together in a while, and movie night was just what they needed to relax after days of science. Everyone was busy these days.

She actually hadn’t talked to Steve at all these days, he was that busy.   
  
Fortunately, this hadn’t managed to cut into Natasha’s time with her à la barre (a part of her hadn’t forgotten that they were supposed to actually go on a date, but Nat wasn’t mentioning it so...  maybe…).

“Here you are!” Speak of the devil.

“Hey, Nat!” Darcy smiled widely, “movie night tomorrow night, you’re coming, right?”

Natasha gave her a small smile, “maybe. I wanted to give this to you.”

She was handed a thick folder in bold letters and numbers. She squinted. “What’s this?”

“My files.” Natasha sounded physically pained at the idea. “My non-redacted ones. I want you to- no, I need you to read them, in light of what was said before Clint and I left.” Ah.

“Read them,” she stressed. “You need to know.”  
  
And without another word, she left.

* * *

  


Maybe it wasn’t the smartest idea.

She shouldn’t have left her the files. 

When Darcy had told Natasha that no, she didn’t, in fact, know anything about her life, she had been horrified. Because of course, it wouldn’t be that simple. It would have been stupid to believe that, really. It was. Stupid, that is.

But Natasha had truly believed the young woman knew.

She wouldn’t try to deceive her, though.

She gave her everything, going as far as giving her an unredacted, complete copy.

Because young, brave Darcy deserved it. Because if she wanted to give this, whatever this was, a shot, Darcy Lewis deserved to know exactly what she was getting into.

Maybe she shouldn’t go to movie night. She should just… let her read and digest it. It was a thick file.

Natasha didn’t go to training that morning, didn’t come to the labs to wave Darcy good morning. It wouldn’t be appropriate, right?  
  
Darcy needed time, surely. 

Yes, she should definitely skip tonight. 

Then again, sometimes she was a glutton for punishment _._

Oh, she had seen the stares of every single Agent at SHIELD whenever they crossed paths the first time, the nervous smile, the beads of sweat gathering on their foreheads. In fact, when she first met Darcy Lewis her reaction had been much the same. It was expected.

But wrong. And miscalculated.

Because if Darcy knew nothing, there was no reason to have such a reaction.   
  
Nothing added up and nothing made sense to her. 

Still, her heart wouldn’t stop one second.

Would Darcy take her words back, now that she had given her the keys to understanding the red on her hands?

She fought the urge to hit the wall or something. 

She straightened her spine. She couldn’t change what and who she’d been. She was trying to be better, and this was the new her. She wasn’t perfect. But she liked who she was now. Clint had shown her that. The other Avengers had, too. Maybe she didn’t have Captain’s America golden star, but that was fine too. 

Whatever came from this evening, it was another step in her life and she would not skip it.

* * *

  


When Natasha entered the room, everyone was there.

Clint was straddling the sofa occupied by Foster. Well, Natasha suspected it was Foster. It was a lump of covers with a tiny hole where a single, shining eye peeked out.  
  
Steve and Tony were on the ground, Bruce was getting popcorn and settling beside the burrito lump. 

“Oh, hey Nat!” Clint waved, his ‘i know something’ face smiling at her. She’d have to grill him later. “We’ve decided for Austen tonight, isn’t it _great_?”

_Oh. Yes. Great. Absolutely._ “Suddenly I am reminded of a previous engagement,” she drawled. “I really can’t stay.”

Clint snickered. “Suit yourself, but Pride and Prejudice is a classic.”

Natasha groaned. “I bet it’s even the 2005 one.”

“Eh, I’ve seen worse,” Darcy interjected nonchalantly. She was curled in the armchair by the door, her glasses on her nose and needle in hand. “Like ‘Pride’. It’s an Italian mini series but, honestly? The shit is real there,” she grinned.

“Please,” Clint scoffed. “Nothing will ever compare to Ivan the Terrible. That was real.”

Natasha drew back in mock indignation. “Are you dissing our Comrade’s tastes in cinema, Clint?”

“In Soviet Russia...!” Steve puffed up, letting the sentence hang in the air. 

Clint and Darcy laughed. A knot in Natasha’s stomach loosened a little.

“If you octogenarian could please stop talking about the good old days,” Tony grouched. “We’ve got a movie to start and drinks to share. And Bruce has popcorn and he’s _not_ sharing with you.”

“We’ll live,” Natasha remarked drily, but Clint and Steve settled down in their places.

“Nat, Nat!” Darcy was whispering rapidly, waving her left arm and patting the armchair with her right one. “There’s space here.”

Hope bloomed in her chest as she dropped gracefully on the armchair.

Darcy coiled around her like a koala, then stopped and stared at her in the eye.

Natasha’s breath caught.

Darcy’s eyes were still the same, and yet there was a deep understanding shining in there.

The spy’s arm sneaked behind her and wrapped around her middle.

Darcy snuggled closer. 

* * *

  


“So, Friday? Please, please please?” Darcy’s eyes widened to an impossible degree and little stars appeared all around her. 

Jane sighed. “What? What Friday?”

“JANE!” Darcy gasped. “ _This_ Friday! You _promised_. Day off! Please don’t tell me you forgot. Please.”

“I haven’t, Darcy,” she huffed without malice. “May I ask what’s so important this Friday?”

“ You did forget! Oh my God, Jane!” Darcy gasped. “Anyways… I’m going on a date,” she continued nonchalantly. “With Natasha.”

Jane’s mouth opened. “ _No._ ”

_“Yes.”_

“You need to tell me everything as soon as you’re back. I can’t believe I forgot about this. This is serious development! I must upd-” The astrophysicist stopped short and coughed sheepishly.

“Update _what_ , Jane?” Darcy demanded dangerously. If this was some kind of bet...

“Nothing!” The woman answered quickly. Too quickly. “Look, let me live vicariously through you, yeah?”

“Jane!”

* * *

  


“So, why the zoo?”

As agreed, they had ended practice earlier in order to get a real shower and get ready to spend the day out. 

New York was shining in the autumn light, the weather chilly even if it was just the first week of September. It had also rained for the last three days, so Darcy was extremely glad the sun was actually visible today.

She stole a glance at her partner, who was wearing only a light jacket over her t-shirt and almost shuddered. Her own thick cardigan felt a bit colder just by looking. 

“Because it’s casual?” Darcy offered. “Seriously, we live right there, there’s a lot of people who did not come to see you, the sun is out so there’s less danger and we’re right in the middle of a Park, in case something actually happens.”

A cheer went up from the crowd. “Also, they’re feeding the penguins in a few minutes and the little ones are _adorable_.”

Natasha snorted, “ah, here’s the real reason.”

Darcy stuck her tongue out. “Sue me, penguins are the cutest.”

The Russian woman didn’t comment further, but clasped her hand in hers and guided her forward.

Darcy wasn’t exactly sure how they ended up right in front of the penguins' habitat, frankly. 

They watched as the tiny critters were led outside carefully by the zookeepers, and ‘ooohed’ and ‘aaahed’ with everyone else. “They’re so cute!”

“They’re balls of bouncy that should not survive the continuous falls they subject their bodies to,” Natasha commented at one point.   
  
The intern gasped. “How dare you! It’s no- No, it’s pretty accurate,” she smiled toothily. “But that’s what makes them special, I suppose.”

She followed transfixed one of the big Emperor penguin waddling around. “Also, once they get into the water they’re unbelievable. They’re pretty incredible.”

The spy followed her gaze. “Mh.”

The tiny ones were led back inside, and the crowd again cheered thunderously. 

Darcy’s fingers entwined with Natasha’s and she pecked her cheek. “So, where to next?”

* * *

  


One date became two, then three, and Natasha was even surprised things were settling so nicely.

When Clint had bemoaned the quiet life, years ago, Natasha had scoffed. She had been sure she wouldn’t like the domesticity of settling down and have a nice family. The monotony would destroy her from inside out, she’d retorted, her job was the only thing that kept her alive.

Instead, she had come to crave the peace and simple joys she had found at the Tower.

There was nothing banal and boring about her mornings, for she anticipated the time she would spend with Darcy on their toes, or the afternoons she’d spend with her teammates… and yeah, she kind of understood her archer friend right now. He got her there.

“Post incoming,” announced Steve at lunch.

She didn’t even know if she should sigh or groan. Fanmail had become such a fixture in her life, too. She bit into her slice of bread, dejectedly.

As usual, Clint made a lunge for her pile and she didn’t even bat an eye. Let him have his fun.

“Darcy, there’s something for you, too,” he added.

Her girlfriend (girlfriend!) stopped mid-bite, then chewed slowly. “That’s so weird. How can people even send it to me? Like, how?”

“Stark Industries has post boxes for their employees, Double D,” explained Tony. “Then after they’re screened, not opened, of course, they’re sent to the Tower.”

“Huh.” Darcy fingered the letter and then opened it. Two tickets fell out of it.

Everybody stared curiously at the intern, who was rapidly reading the content of the letter. 

“Well, I’ll be-” she murmured.

“You’ll be what?” interjected Tony, who couldn’t contain his curiosity any longer.

“It’s from a friend of mine, Mary. Or, well, an acquaintance I suppose? We didn’t exactly keep in touch after I went to Culver. It’s… two tickets for Coppelia… ?” It honestly sounded like a question.

“Coppelia, the ballet?” 

“Huh-uh. Like, I vaguely recall promising her we’d go see each other if one of us made it… I just didn’t think she was going to send me the tickets? I mean, wow. I’m happy for her.” She sounded honest, but Natasha could see a twinge of sadness on her face. Her girlfriend turned to her, “do you want to come? I mean- It’s the Balanchine version so it’s a bit different fro-”

“Of course.” 

* * *

  


“Your friend was excellent,” complimented Natasha as they exited the theatre. It had been such a pleasant night out, too.

“Thanks, I’ll let her know. I’m really happy for her. And the others were splendid, too,” added Darcy. And she was. Mary deserved it.

“You know, I had never seen the Balanchine's Coppelia before today,” the Russian spy commented thoughtfully.

“Never?” Darcy knew she hadn’t danced it in public, for this version of Coppelia had come about around 1975 in New York, so it probably reached Russia much later, and by then Natasha had left the stage. 

“Never.”

Darcy gasped dramatically. “Well, am I glad your first time was with me!” She took her hand and tried to spin her in a circle.

Natasha laughed. “Oh, yes, sure.” She shook her head. “It’s very different from the Petipa version I’m used to, sounds fun.”

“Oh, fun, of course. You can do all of those jumps,” she gestured to her chest. “I’ll stick to watching.” 

The spy laughed again and put her arm around Darcy’s shoulders.

* * *

  


Natasha was called back on mission two days later. 

It was supposed to be a short one, but then something went south, and she was going to stick around for another three weeks. 

“Three weeks,” she bemoaned to Jane, who was patting her head sympathetically. 

“There, there.”

“I’m adding this Fury guy to my taser list,” she whined.

“...You have a taser list?” Jane asked incredulously.

Darcy nodded. “Oh yes.” The list was admittedly short, since most of the guys who had made Nat’s life Hell were dead, but it was still a work in progress “And Fury and Sitwell are right at the top. Take note, JARVIS.”  
  
“Noted.” Even the AI sounded exasperated. 

“Well, look at the bright side!” Jane exclaimed with exaggerated cheerfulness. “We can get a lot of science done together.” Darcy moaned in pain. “I was actually kidding, Darcy. I’m actually leaving for London in a couple of days.”  
  
Darcy jerked up. “You are???”

Bosslady shrugged helplessly. “I need to visit my mom, it’s been a long while. I’d have offered to host you as well, but space is tight and I didn’t think Natasha would be away.” She looked away, uncomfortable. “I was actually trying to give you some alone time, but- I mean I can reschedule?”

“No, no, Janey, no!” Darcy quickly shut her protests. “You must go. Go see your mom, I’ll harass Tony and Steve around the tower. Heck, might even get some hours of sleep!” she joked.

Jane looked unsure, but eventually agreed.

* * *

  


It took Darcy two days to get bored. She kept her routine constant even without Nat, but the lack of Jane and Steve’s ever growing  problems with SHIELD (it was actually starting to sound very suspicious) were really taking a toll.

It was then that she remembered about something she could actually do.

“Hey, JARVIS, could you please help me with something?”

* * *

  


Her bones ached. Oh how tired she was.

She dropped bonelessly on the couch as soon as the door closed behind her back.

She was home.

Natasha idly wondered when exactly had she started thinking about it as home, but no matter.

Her body needed a couple of hours. 

When she woke up, it was dark.

She stretched and yawned. Her hand felt the phone in her jacket. Ah, she should have called Darcy and tell her she was home. Ah well, she’d surprise her. She liked being surprising. Kept people on her toes. Besides, this was a good surprise, hopefully.

“JARVIS-”  
  
“Miss Lewis is in the kitchen, Miss Romanoff.” Had… Had she become that predictable? Ah, well.

“Thank you.”

* * *

  


The flour had been misplaced. 

Again.

Oh, she was going to have words with whoever kept changing place to the ingredients without thinking of the vertically challenged souls that lived in the tower. Her money was on Clint, the asshole, but Bruce could also be a likely culprit… he used _stools._

Well, not today. Today she won.

She’d just reached the packet, the huge, humongous thing she had to use because the guys ate like a rabid pack of wolves and was already tasting victory.

A pair of arms circled her from behind “Well, that’s a nice view-”  

“SHIT!”

Poof. 

Darcy blinked. Everything was… white. 

Oh God, she had white all over her and… oh.

“Sorry, Nat,” she giggled sheepishly. Natasha was goggling at her, her lips stretched into an incredulous smile. 

“Not the view I was experiencing one second ago, but it’ll do.”

Darcy snorted at that. “Ah man, the kitchen’s a mess.” Of course, the more she tried to fix it, the more she contaminated the surfaces with more white powder.

“I activated the cleaning robots, Miss Lewis,” JARVIS immediately alerted her.

“Oh man, I can just feel their tiny cries of dismay, JARVIS,” Darcy made a face. The poor buddies. 

“It’s their job, Miss Lewis.” JARVIS was completely done with her today, apparently.

“JARVIS is right, and we should clean ourselves up before we make a mess of the whole commonfloor, Darce,” sighed Natasha. “Come, my apartment is closer, I’ll lend you a towel.”

Oh. Oh, okay.

_Nat’s apartment. It was closer_.

* * *

  


Nat’s apartment was much more sparse than she expected to.

And okay, this was the first time she’d actually been there.

They had been going out for months, yes, but she had since accepted that Nat’s spaces were hers and hers alone. And it was fine. Because heck, were the positions reversed Darcy would have been much more needy about personal space.

Instead, Natasha was as touchy-feely as she was. She always searched physical contact, be it with a kiss, or a hug, a pat on the head,  and yeah, every single one of them was as amazing as the first one.

Still, personal space was a thing. 

Like when they were in ‘their’ room with the barre it was agreed that they should keep it ‘professional’, Darcy had volunteered her rooms for their more personal moments.

So yes, she was kinda feeling this as a sort of cathartic moment, even if Nat had offered it for pure practicality (it was not fun to dirty two corridors instead of just one for the sake of propriety). Besides, there wasn’t much they hadn’t seen of each other anyways. 

Again, the apartment was clearly lived in, but it lacked the sort of personal touch she had expected from the ballerina.

“Over here, Darcy,” Natasha called from the bathroom adjacent to her bedroom.

Oh, she had been wrong. So very very wrong.

If the living room was ‘spartan’, the bedroom was amazing. 

Covered in plushies and pink cushions, it was… simply amazing. 

Not that she stared at the bed… too much.

“Shower’s over there, you can go first,” Natasha smiled and offered her a pink oversized bathrobe. “Don’t worry, it’s not Clint’s,” she winked.

* * *

  


Clean was nice.

The nicest, actually.

Darcy wrapped her arms around her bathrobe clad body and started drying off carefully.

She could feel the sound of the shower going from here, and Nat’s very off-key singing. She suppressed a giggle, who knew Natasha would be one of those people who sang in the shower.

She sat on the spy’s large bed and looked around, enjoying the sleek covers. It was actually a strange feeling to be in Natasha’s room without her, and she had to resist squealing like a girl.

Okay, squealing too much.

It was then that she noticed it. On her girlfriend’s nightstand, right beside her reading lamp, was a consumed envelope with a Norwegian stamp. A familiar Norwegian stamp.

Suddenly her body didn’t know whether to flush or pale. 

It was her letter. The letter she’d sent more than a year ago! 

Oh dear, dear. She… Natasha had kept it.

Oh God, she’d forgot she even sent the thing. 

She remembered the contents, though. Almost word for word.

She took a peek at the door. Okay, she could still hear the shower going and Natasha humming.

She could probably have a nice freak out over nothing here.   
“What are you doing?” _Come on!_

“I reeeally need to stop thinking ‘oh hey I’ve got time’,” she laughed, her voice a tad too high. She took a deep breath. “So! I guess it’s the perfect moment to confess something, I mean, better now than never, right?”

“Isn’t the phrase supposed to be ‘we need to talk’?” the woman’s voiced airily, her tone almost too controlled.

“Wha- NO! That’s not what I meant, Natasha, no!” Darcy exclaimed, her hands coming up in a ‘stop’ motion. “No. Just, no. Okay? No. I just… I need to talk to you. About Mistake number 500.”

Natasha’s eyes flickered to the letter on the nightstand. “Did you read my correspondence?”

Darcy’s eyes widened. “No, I would never. I- I wrote that letter!” _Oh yep. Build up to it Darce, it’s a skill_. 

Natasha’s face blanked. “You wrote it. From Norway.”

Darcy nodded miserably. “From Bumfuck, nowhere, Tromso.” And there it was, the famous Lewis flood. Once it started, you couldn’t really put a stopper to it. “-And of course I recognized you from moment one, and you’re like, the reason I took up dancing and…” The woman just stared at her. “-And then you were there and I was sure I was going to be disappeared because fuck, I just confessed to recognize an international assassin, but then I wasn’t, so I thought you didn’t care enough about what I wrote so I was like, ‘Okay, fine, we’ll forget about it’, and I did! And you didn’t know me, and I didn’t know you, and you… I didn’t want to seem like a fangirl, and you’re so amazing. And then I got to know you, and _I love you so much_ and now I find out you kept my letter all along and I’m- I’m seriously rambling right now and I don’t know why…!” She took a deep breath.

Natasha was still staring at her, completely blank. “Please, say something?”

The spy’s lips twitched upwards, then she smiled, and then, Natasha threw her head back and laughed.

And she laughed so hard and gaily, that she collapsed on the bed still giggling and snickering away. 

It was so contagious, even Darcy started giggling by reflex. 

“You. Are. Ridiculous,” Natasha laughed loudly. “Did you know that letter is the single reason _I_ took up dancing again? Oh, Darce, why would you hide that?”

She prowled on the bed until she was right behind Darcy, laying on her stomach. 

“Dunno, I mean, you were just… up there, and like-” Darcy blushed. She felt Nat’s hand tug her lightly, so she lay on the bed, her head right in front of hers. 

“You silly thing. Is this why you were so jumpy the first few days? Starstruck feels?” Natasha scoffed.

Darcy huffed. “As if you would have done better.”

“Well,” Natasha purred, “I can think of a few better things to do _right now_.”

“Oh you can, can’t you?”

“Mh mh.” Her girlfriend smiled. “No more talking.”

* * *

  


“Hey, has anyone seen Darcy? Wasn’t she going to cook tonight?”

* * *

  


“Miss Lewis, it is five thirty.”

Had her bed always had this many pillows? Like, she was covered in soft stuff. That… That wasn’t her bed, right? And she had an alarm clock, she didn’t use JARVIS.

Something warm moved in front of her. She opened one eye and was met with a thick red curly mane. Oh, well. Maybe she could stick around a few more minutes. She snuggled closer, put her head on Natasha’s and closed her eyes.

“Miss Romanov, it is five thirty,” the AI continued.

Natasha woke up precisely three seconds later, as if on command. Her arms tightened around Darcy, her legs disentangled and stretched. Darcy watched her take stock of everything around her and then relax, melting into the embrace. 

“Should we get up?” Darcy mumbled.

“We should. Did we even eat dinner?” grouched Natasha.

“...We didn’t.” 

The spy sighed. “Then we definitely should.”

“Naaw,” complained Darcy, but got up nonetheless. 

They mechanically cleaned themselves up, and Nat gave Darcy something to spare her the walk of shame. 

* * *

  


By mutual understanding, they both got ready to train anyways. 

Darcy kind of envied Natasha’s recovery abilities right now, she was feeling pleasantly sore… And she was going to feel it _more,_ and soon.

But there was something she wanted to do, and she’d been working on it for weeks.

“Should we start warming up?” Natasha smiled.

“Oh yes.” Darcy nodded. “...So,” she edged towards the wall, a small bag in her hands. Nat turned to her. “I checked with JARVIS, and it’s… impossible for me to give a decent rendition of Coppelia, not without skipping all the fancy jumps and let’s be real, these boobs can be merciless over the fifth one. But, I got,” and here she took out a stack of paper, “a lot of crap from Mary, but that’s not the point. These are rough instruction for the Hours variation, if… if you wanted to try it, together, mh?”

Natasha chuckled. “Did I tell you you’re ridiculous? Full of surprises, yes, but ridiculous.”

She took the papers and leafed through it. “Of course I want to try it with you.”

  


**Author's Note:**

> Oh man, so many notes.  
> Notes on Ballets and dates would be too long to just peel in this tiny box, so I'll try to simplify.  
> I've used mostly wikipedia and the New York ballet websites for sources.
> 
> I invite you to check the Royal Ballet's plea for pointe shoes donations, if you wanted additional information on their fascinating world.
> 
> The world I pictured is heavily edited. Reading reports, I've read beautiful and terrible things about ballerinas. I am in no way trying to diminish their hard work and talent and pursuit for perfection. They are truly admirable and seriously, I bow to you.
> 
> * Pride is an Italian miniseries which was supposed to last 10 episodes, but then of course the producers noticed it was doing really fine, so they extended it to another 3 seasons of pure, unadulterated pain.  
> * Ivan the Terrible is a movie from 1958 I was forced to watch for my Russian lit test back in the day. Enough said.
> 
> I am like, 40000% certain I forgot something in my notes, but I hope I'll be able to remember what exactly.
> 
>  **I hope you liked it,** (especially you Holly), **and please leave a comment and make my day!**  
>  Stay amazing!


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